


Stab Wound

by watcherofworlds



Series: Whumptober 2019 [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Injury, Injury Recovery, Post-Episode: s03e12 Uprising, Prompt Fill, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 06:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20961926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: Prompt fill for Whumptober Day 8 "Stab Wound"





	Stab Wound

For the last hour, Felicity had been listening the swish of a sword blade moving through the air as Oliver trained for the next time he’d have to face Ra’s Al Ghul. Now, suddenly, it stopped, cut off by a pained grunt.

“Oliver?” she asked, worry lacing her voice, looking up from her computers. He was still standing in the same place he had been for the last hour, but now he was standing completely, utterly still, his sword held in a slack grip at his side. As Felicity watched, he started to list to the side.

“Oliver!” she cried, leaping up from her chair and rushing over to his side, bracing him with one hand on his chest and the other on his back to stop him from falling. After a moment, he seemed to come back to himself, and immediately jerked away from her as if her touch burned him.

“You’re bleeding!” Felicity cried, her voice coming out in a shocked, horrified yelp when she glanced down at the palm of the hand she’d had braced against Oliver’s chest and found it coated in red.

“I… moved the wrong way and reopened a stab wound,” Oliver explained in a strained voice, jaw clenched tight in a pained grimace. “I’m fine. I just need to need to bandage it.” He crossed the room to where he kept the first aid kit. 

“Oliver!” Felicity shouted, chasing after him. Drawing even with him, she grabbed his arm and yanked him around to face her. “You are _ not _ fine.”

“Felicity…” Oliver murmured, trailing off. For a moment, neither of them moved. Oliver’s bright blue eyes looked into hers, and in them Felicity saw all of the pain he was trying to hide. Then he pulled his arm out of her grip and continued on with what he’d been doing, and the moment was lost.

“Oliver, you’re not fine,” she said, following after him, watching him sort through the medical supplies in the first aid kit with steady hands and a practiced eye. “You’re not fine, and a bandage-” she snatched one out of his hand- “isn’t going to fix this. The only thing that will is you giving yourself time to heal.”

“I don’t  _ have _ time,” Oliver replied in an insistent, almost desperate voice, taking the bandage in Felicity’s hand back from her in a motion too fast for her eyes to follow. “It’s only a matter of time before Ra’s realizes that I’m alive and comes for us all, and I need to be ready.”

“And what good will it do if you  _ kill _ yourself trying to accomplish that?” Felicity demanded. “What good will it do if you work yourself so hard that the wound that almost killed you finishes the job?” Without thinking about what she was doing, she pressed Oliver’s hand- and the bandage he was holding in it- against the newly reopened and bleeding stab wound on his chest, just below his ribcage.

“ _ Please _ ,” she whispered desperately. She tried to remind herself that she wasn’t supposed to care this much, that she shouldn’t have been touching him like this- her hand over his, feeling the raised ridges of his scars beneath her fingertips- but to no avail. Felicity had told Oliver that she didn’t want to be a woman that he loved, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from being a woman that loved him.

“Felicity, I can’t,” Oliver said softly. “I can’t afford to rest. I don’t have that luxury.” He finished bandaging himself up, and in the brief moment before he let his gaze drop away from hers, Felicity saw him put his emotional walls back up, closing himself off from the rest of the world. Including her.

“It’s not a luxury, Oliver,” she pleaded, following after him once again as he took up his sword once more. “It’s your _ life _ . Please. I can’t watch you kill yourself. I can’t.”

“If I don’t train, we’re all dead when Ra’s comes for us anyway,” Oliver said stubbornly, his voice and countenance like stone. “And I can’t let that happen. I  _ won’t _ .”


End file.
